Tic-Tac-Hearts

I feel like I just got all of my Christmas decorations put away and now its time to put out Valentine's decorations. I am glad, because my front door was looking a little bare. The conversation heart wall hanging (see earlier post) was my first creation for this year. When I told my 3-year old that we were going to put up our Valentine's decorations he immediately started singing "Jingle Bells." He makes me laugh!

My guys love to play Tic-Tac-Toe so I decided to make a heart inspired version. I used a white picture frame, white thread, and one piece each of white, pink, red and black felt.

First I cut the black felt to fit inside the 8x10 frame. Next I cut 1/2 inch strips of white and machine sewed them onto the black forming the tic-tac-toe board. Next I traced a heart shaped cookie cutter to make the heart game pieces. Then I put the black piece into the frame and we were ready to play! I oldest son informed me that we can't call it tic-tac-toe, we have to call it "tic-tac-hearts."

Family Hearts

February is just a couple of days away, so it's time to start on my Valentine's crafts. Okay I probably should have started a few weeks ago so that I could actually enjoy some of the decorations that I want to make, but I am going to give it my best shot over the next few days. As a kid Conversation Heart Candies were a staple to every Valentine's Day. I never really liked them, but I always liked to read them. Now they put all different sayings on them. At the store the other day I was looking at the Valentine candy and discovered that Brach's makes Ice cream Flavored Conversation Hearts. I decided that I was going to give them a try. Here are a few of my favorite sayings.

The new Ice Cream flavors did not impress me, but the candy did inspire today's creation.

Materials Needed

Wooden Hearts

4-6 Different Pastel Paint Colors

Staple Gun

Paint Brush

48" of 1.5" wide ribbon

Letter Stickers

The hearts had barcode stickers on them so I had to use a combination of a razor blade and Goo Gone to get the adhesive off. To make sure that I covered up the slight color that the Goo Gone gave, I had to paint each of the hearts with 3 coats of paint.

After the paint is dry, arrange the name letters on the hearts. To attempt to get the names centered and straight, I started with the middle letter of the name and placed it in the center of the heart. I then placed the letters on either side and so on until all letters were on the heart.

Next I spaced the hearts on the ribbon. The dots on the ribbon helped me to space them equally apart with out having to measure it. I used the staple gun to attach them in place.

I next attached an 8 inch piece on the top heart to form a loop to use as a hanger.

This SUPER CUTE decoration will hang in our house year after year!